The house at 19 Chaplin Street in Chaplin was built in 1840 by Isaac Eaton (1801-1846). He married Maria Butler in 1824 and they had three sons: Horace, Isaac Lester, and Albert Dwight. Born the year the house was built, Albert Dwight Eaton died in 1851 at the age of eleven. His tombstone once stood in the home’s garden, but was removed when a family monument was erected in the Chaplin Center Cemetery.
Dr. Orin Witter of Chaplin built the brick house, with distinctive monitor roof, at 73 Chaplin Street c. 1820, when he was first setting up his practice. He also served as the first Town Clerk of Chaplin. The house remained in the Witter family until 1960, being the home of Dr. Orin Witter II and Orin Witter III. As related in the Commemorative Biographical Rrecord of Tolland and Windham Counties (1903), the first Dr. Witter
became a noted physician and one of the town’s most prominent citizens. He studied medicine with Dr. Hutchins, of Brooklyn, and later with Dr. Thomas Hubbard, of Pomfret, completing his studies at Yale Medical College in 1820. During the same year he established himself as a physician, in Chaplin, Conn., and soon gained the confidence and approbation of the people. Two years later, when the town was incorporated, he was chosen the first town clerk, and was later a member of the board of education, and was also made judge of probate in his district. The latter office he held for many years, until age excluded him from service.
For nearly fifty years Dr. Witter continued in practice, retiring about two years previous to his death, which took place Feb. 2, 1869. Dr. Orrin Witter was married to Florinda Preston and two daughters and one son were born to them, one daughter dying in infancy, and the other, Cornelia, marrying Dr. E. C. Holt, of Bennington, N. Y. The son, Dr. Orrin Witter, was born in Chaplin, Conn., April 25, 1835, and married Helen A. Utley, a third of the name, their son, also being a physician. Dr. Witter (2) attended Yale Medical College, and also the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, graduating from the latter institution in 1859. He succeeded to the practice of his father and has since conducted the same with remarkable success, in spite of the fact that he has been blind for several years.
As noted in A Modern History of Windham County, Connecticut, Vol. I (1920):
The first Dr. Orrin Witter located in Chaplin in 1820, his son, Orrin Witter, Jr., began practice in 1860. The elder died in 1869, and the junior in 1907. Dr. Orrin Witter III retains the old homestead as a summer residence, but is a practitioner in Hartford.
In 1960 the house was purchased by another doctor, Brae Rafferty, M.D., who restored it with his wife, Ann Postemsky Rafferty. (more…)
The old Gurley Tavern at 42 Chaplin Street in Chaplin is an impressively detailed Federal-style residence. It was built c. 1822, the year the Town of Chaplin was incorporated, as a stagecoach inn. An upstairs ballroom, which later housed a private school, has since been converted to a bedroom and bathroom. An addition connects the building to a barn at the rear. During the twentieth century, for fifty years the former tavern was the residence of quilt maker Ruth Snow Bowen and was known as The Quilt Shop. The Chaplin Post Office was located in the north parlor from 1950 to 1965. The building, later in rough condition, underwent a major restoration in 1999-2000. It began taking guests as the Old Gurley Tavern Country Inn, but was later subject to a foreclosure.
The house at 107 Chaplin Street in Chaplin, built c. 1819-1820, is notable for its elaborate Federal-style detailing. The house is called the Hope House in the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Chaplin Historic District. Johanne Philbrick, who resides in the house, calls it the Holt House on p. 7 of her Historic Homes of Chaplin Village (Exeter Press, 2008).
Dating to c. 1830-1835, the house at 47 Chaplin Street in Chaplin is the parsonage of the Congregational Church next door. It is also known as “Friendship House.”
The house at 318 Phoenixville Road in Chaplin was built c. 1828 by Isaac Goodell. It was later owned by Lester Bill and Newell C. Hunt. Jesse Hunt sold the house to George England in 1905.
The Congregational church in Chaplin was organized in 1810 and the meeting house was erected in 1810-1815. As related in Richard M. Bayles’ History of Windham County, Connecticut (1889):
it was accepted as completed according to contract September 14th, 1815. It was not finished as it was intended eventually to be but so that public worship could be held in it. Neither pews, slips nor pulpit were provided, but the people went up with joy to the courts of the Lord, to worship Him in His own house. After a number of years a steeple was built upon the east end of the meeting house, a bell procured in 1837, the pews or slips were constructed, and a lofty pulpit placed for the elevation of the minister. Thus they intended to have their pastors settled over the people. Many years after, one of the pastors expressed the earnest wish to have the pulpit brought down from its great altitude, that he might be among his people as one of them, saying when his Master wished him to come up to heaven he hoped he should be ready, but while he was upon earth he did not wish to be placed somewhere between earth and heaven. The pulpit was brought down as he wished, and yet it was too high for some of his successors, and it has been brought down several feet lower, and now it has only the elevation of the modern pulpit. A number of years since, the people feeling the need of a lecture room or vestry, moved the meeting house about fifty feet on the hillside, and constructed a very commodious vestry under it, where the evening meetings and other religious and social gatherings are accommodated. Thus the same meeting house has been occupied during the entire history of the church, except for a short time when worship was held in the Center school house.
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